


Valencia Shouldn't Get in a Car with Rebecca!

by burglebezzlement



Category: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (TV)
Genre: Boba, Escape Rooms, F/F, Telling Rebecca about your crush is a really terrible idea, Yuletide Treat, glitter metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-18 07:11:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13095036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burglebezzlement/pseuds/burglebezzlement
Summary: When Valencia tells Rebecca her biggest secret, Rebecca decides to help. Too bad “help” means trapping Valencia and Heather in her friend’s escape room.





	Valencia Shouldn't Get in a Car with Rebecca!

**Author's Note:**

  * For [McBangle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/McBangle/gifts).



Valencia probably should have known when Rebecca as soon as Rebecca showed up at her door, all smiles and I-brought-you-a-box-of-water, talking about this great new tea shop that specializes in healing yoga tea and how they should go there together, right now. 

She definitely knows something’s up on the car ride over, when Rebecca doesn’t want to talk about healing teas and instead keeps changing the subject to musical theater. 

There is no tea shop. Rebecca has a plan.

Valencia gets out of Rebecca’s car and grimly surveys the crumbling strip mall in front of her. It’s the bottom of West Covina’s retail world. The opposite of East Cameron. 

“Why are we here?” She taps her foot impatiently.

“It’s going to be great, I promise.” Rebecca takes her hand and starts dragging her towards what looks like a closed storefront. 

Rebecca lets herself in with a key and brings Valencia through a gutted shell of a building towards an office at the back. “Just put your phone and wallet in here,” Rebecca says, holding out a cheap plastic bin. “There’s a chance the electronics where we’re going could damage them.”

Valencia stares at Rebecca. “Really?”

“Come on.” Rebecca puts her own phone and wallet in the box, and Valencia gives in and puts her phone and wallet in too. She sees someone else’s stuff in there, but Rebecca whisks the box away. “In here.”

Rebecca leads her through a heavy metal door that opens into a room that looks like the set of a bad noir movie. Windows covered with blinds, old-fashioned wood furniture, and framed paintings in black and white on the wall. 

Valencia stops. “Rebecca, what the hell is going on?”

The desk chair spins around to reveal Heather. “I’m glad you’ve arrived,” she says dramatically. “I’ve asked you all here today… okay, I got nothing. Why are we here?”

Rebecca starts backing towards the door. “This is my friend Roy’s escape room, I’ve been helping him with the permitting and everything so the city doesn’t make him get insurance as a jail, but it’s going to be really fun I promise and you guys will totally bond and learn to work together again, byeeeeeeeeee!”

Her final word echos in the room as the door latches shut behind her.

Valencia stares at Heather. “What just happened?”

“It’s cool,” Heather says. “Escape rooms have to have an emergency exit. It’s, like, zoning or whatever.” She gets up and points to an anachronistic red button on the wall, under an EMERGENCY sign. She hits it, and then hits it again when nothing happens.

“Okay. That’s bad.” Heather pushes her hair back and tries the door. It doesn’t open.

Valencia blinks. “Did — did she just lock us in here?”

“Signs point to yes.” Heather shakes her head. “What’s that she said, about us learning to work together again?” 

“Uh — I don’t know.” Valencia picks up the handset of the old-fashioned rotary phone on the desk, but it’s just making weird beeping sounds. “It must be something you said to her.”

“Is this about the Hector thing?” Heather sits back down in the chair and puts her feet up on the desk. She’s wearing shorts, and Valencia swallows at the sight of her long, lean legs against the desk blotter. “Hector and I aren’t even seeing each other anymore.”

“I have got to stop letting Rebecca do this,” Valencia mutters. “Kidnap me once, shame on me. Kidnap me twice, and I no longer ride in your car. I am taking my own car from now until the end of time.”

“So it’s not about the Hector thing,” Heather says. “You’re changing the topic. It’s something else. What is it?”

 _Definitely not the fact that I got drunk and told Rebecca I might maybe kind of have an enormous crush on you_ , Valencia thinks. 

“Look, we can argue when we get out of here,” she says. “Help me look for a door.”

Heather raises an eyebrow. “She might let us out if you tell me.”

“Rebecca?” Valencia looks around the room. “You think she’s watching?”

“Watching and listening, probably.” Heather points out a couple hidden security cameras that Valencia hadn’t noticed.

“Did she make you leave your phone?” Valencia asks.

“Yeah.” Heather spins around in the desk chair a few times, and then gets up. “Fine. Let’s look for the key or whatever.”

Valencia starts by looking behind furniture. There’s got to be another exit. There’s a heavy wardrobe on the far wall that looks like it’s hiding a not-so-secret door, but the door to the wardrobe is locked, and there’s no key.

There’s a padlocked box on the bookshelves in the corner. Heather carries it over to the desk and manages to get the padlock off. “Hah! Let’s see what we have.”

“How did you get that open?”

“I’m an expert lock-picker.” Heather pulls a couple pieces of thin plastic out of the box and holds them up to the light.

“It’s a combination lock.”

“And as an expert lock-picker, I deduced that someone left the combination on a sticker on the back of the lock.” Heather slides the pieces of plastic around on top of one another until they spell out a word: PHONE.

“We don’t have phones,” Valencia says, before remembering the phone on the desk. “Wait, there was some sort of code playing. You think —” 

Heather dashes to the desk and picks up the handset. “It’s Morse code,” she says. “Hang on.”

“How do you know Morse code?”

“I’m a student.” Heather pulls a blank sheet of paper out of the desk drawer and starts writing something down. 

WALL EXIT IS IN THE WARDROBE KEY IS THE WALL EXIT — “And then it just repeats,” Heather says in disgust.

“We already knew about the wardrobe,” Valencia says. “It’s the only piece of furniture big enough to hide a door. I don’t see a key on the wall, though.” She’s looked at every painting. Nothing showing a key.

“Start taking down the artwork,” Heather says.

They take down the black and white paintings, which turn out to be cheap printed canvas. And there they are — four switches. They hit all four in succession, but nothing happens. 

“Maybe we’re supposed to hit all four at the same time,” Valencia says.

“There’s only two of us,” Heather says. “They’re too far apart. How are we supposed to —”

“The room must be designed for more people.” 

“So we’re just stuck here?” Heather sits down on the chair again. “This blows.”

“Maybe not.” Valencia looks at the pressure switches again, calculating the angles in her head. They’re too far apart for her to hit them both with her hands, but if she goes into a standing leg raise — 

“I’ve got this,” Valencia says. She balances on one foot, raising her other leg until her toes can just hit the far switch, and then reaches out to hit the second switch with her hand. “Can you —”

Heather hits the other two switches, and the wardrobe door swings open. 

“Awesome!” Heather grins. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

They push aside the trenchcoats in the wardrobe and pry open a panel at the back to find themselves back in the half-built storefront. Rebecca’s sitting behind a desk covered in monitors that show the room they just escaped from.

“Uh… hey, guys!” Rebecca smiles awkwardly. “Meet Roy!”

Rebecca’s friend Roy is a tall, thin man in a turtleneck. “You weren’t supposed to figure out the wall clue until the end,” he complains. “You skipped over all the puzzles that were supposed to lead you to the combination for the box! And you didn’t even find the Morse code chart that was taped under the desk drawers!”

“Not our fault your puzzle gating was shit, man.” Heather grabs the plastic box with their wallets and phones from the desk. “V? We leaving?”

“Oh yeah.” Valencia feels a rush of relief when she gets her phone back. “Can I get a ride with you?”

“Any time.”

“We’re going to have a long, boring conversation about this when I get home,” Heather tells Rebecca. “Good luck fixing your shit, Roy. Heather out.”

Valencia nods curtly at Roy and follows Heather out of the building.

* * *

“I still want to know what Rebecca wanted you to tell me,” Heather says, once they’re in the car, driving away from the plaza. 

Valencia looks away. “I’ll buy you a bubble tea if I don’t have to tell you,” she says.

“How about you buy me a bubble tea _and_ you tell me?”

Valencia lets herself slump down into the seat. She knows Heather isn’t going to drop it. “Fine,” she says.

* * *

Cup of Boba is only a few miles away. Valencia gets herself a no-sugar green tea, light ice. Heather gets a strawberry milk slush, double boba. Valencia pays.

They sit down at one of the high-top tables. “So what did you tell Rebecca?” Heather asks.

“It wasn’t anything big,” Valencia says, toying with her straw. “You were out, and we’d had a bottle or two of rosé. You know how I get when we’re drinking rosé.”

“You’re an adorable drunk,” Heather says, and Valencia ignores the way it makes her stomach flutter. “Which is not the point. What did you tell her?”

Valencia swallows. “Maybe… that I’ve been thinking some things over.” She takes a sip of her green tea, but it’s not helping. “About me, and about what I’m looking for in life, and about why my relationships never work out.” She traces the design in the table with her finger so she doesn’t have to look at Heather. “I’ve got a theory about that.”

“Yeah?” Heather asks.

“I think I like you,” Valencia admits, and then there’s silence at the table. She looks up.

Heather’s looking back at her. “Like… like me, or like, like-like me?”

“I don’t know.” Valencia gets up. “This is stupid. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you.”

She leaves Cup of Boba’s seating area, but Heather follows. In the parking lot, Heather reaches out and takes Valencia’s arm, her fingers light against the skin of Valencia’s wrist. They stay like that for a moment, faces together, not looking at one another, and then Heather puts her other hand under Valencia’s chin, tilting her face up and leaning in to kiss her. 

Her lips taste like trash food, like fake strawberry and corn syrup. Valencia’s never wanted anything so badly in her life. She’s been kissed before, but never like this, never like her body is filled with sparklers, fizzing all over. She leans back against Heather’s car and pulls Heather closer. Anyone could see them, and Valencia doesn’t care. 

“So?” Heather asks, after they finally pull apart.

“What?” Valencia asks, breathless.

“Did that clear anything up?”

Valencia leans forward, her nose touching Heather’s. “I hate you,” she breathes. “Obviously.”

Heather laughs, the sound low and intimate. “Like glitter exploding inside of you?”

Rebecca’s favorite simile. “Maybe a little,” Valencia admits, and gasps when Heather reaches out and touches her stomach, her hand pushing along the sensitive skin of Valencia’s lower back. “Fine. Maybe a lot.”

Heather kisses her again, slow and soft, and then leans up agains the car beside her. “Us getting together is just going to encourage Rebecca,” she says. “We should warn everyone.”

Valencia laces her fingers through Heather’s. “Totally worth it.”


End file.
